Lost: Little Orange Book
by Moiya Hatake
Summary: Oneshot - Jiraiya waited for the blonde’s outburst to subside, his gaze not wavering. It was hard. He understood the heart shattering pain lying just beneath the pools of darkened blue. Minato/Jiraiya/Kakashi. YonKaka. Yaoi.


**YonKaka Community Fanfic Challenge Response to 'Apology'**

**Title:** Lost: Little Orange Book

**Pairing:** YonKaka

**Characters:** Minato, Jiraiya, Kakashi

**Rating:** 13+ just because

**Challenge Fic:** Apology

**Warnings:** Angst, tissues may be required. Yaoi. Mild cursing I believe.

**Author:** Moiya Hatake

Just something I had to get out of my head and low and behold it fit into the challenge too! WOOT!

* * *

Minato stared at the torn article with something nearing desperate denial.

It wasn't true.

It couldn't be.

He refused to take it from the older shinobi. Refused to look at him. Refused to believe.

Even the mask sitting on the other end of his desk mocked him.

The blood splattered across the porcelain finish, across the torn pages of the worn book, wasn't his.

It just couldn't be.

Jiraiya set the tattered half of a book on the desk next to the mask.

The Anbu captain of the team who had discovered the items finished his report.

Clipped.

Professional.

But Minato only heard portions of what had been said.

'Signs of a battle.....all the evidence we could find.'

This was it?

He had teams searching for two weeks for the silver haired shinobi and this was all they could find?

Minato stretched out his hand, carefully picking up the tattered back cover and 100 or so pages still attached.

Kakashi never went anywhere without one of his precious books.

But it didn't mean anything the blonde told himself, setting it down and turning his attention to the mask.

Neither of these items meant anything when it came to the one question they had yet to answer and prove to his satisfaction.

Was Hatake Kakashi still alive?

The Anbu shifted slightly, glancing between the two men when it remained silent far too long to be comfortable, "Hokage-sama."

"Minato."

Blue eyes lifted in slow recognition, moving from one face to the other, "Your dismissed. I expect a full written report on my desk by morning."

His voice just as clipped and professional as the Anbu.

Jiraiya waited as the masked shinobi nodded and disappeared, the room falling into silence again as the young Hokage eyed the offensive items that said everything and nothing, "He could be injured."

"Minato."

"Or possibly a prisoner."

"Minato."

"He's in the bingo book, and easily recognizable. They'd want to brag about catching the copy-nin. In time word will spread and we'll know....."

"Min-"

"He's not dead!"

A lesser shinobi would have taken a step back the instant the blonde stood, slamming his fist onto the desk, sending out an uncontrolled shock wave of emotionally charged chakra.

But the veil of anger didn't hide the way his chest clenched with the effort to calm himself. To stop the tightness of his throat or ease the stinging at the corner of his eyes with carefully drawn breaths.

The anger was seen for what it truly was by the experienced shinobi.

Pain that only the loss of a loved one could create.

"These..." Minato swept his hand across the hardwood surface sending the only two pieces of his precious person to return home so far across the room, "...don't mean shit to me! They mean absolutely nothing except that he lost them in a battle!"

Jiraiya waited for the blonde's outburst to subside, his gaze not wavering. It was hard. He understood the heart shattering pain lying just beneath the pools of darkened blue.

"Two weeks Minato..." he spoke softly, carefully.

"If he's injured or has been captured..." the blonde shook his head, his mind set on a clear state of denial.

"Two weeks!" Jiraiya's voice boomed suddenly, sounding angry at the younger mans refusal to listen, "If it was any other shinobi you'd declare them..."

"Don't you dare say it." Minato warned, a lone hot tear tracing a line down the side of his face as he held the older shinobi's gaze.

The first true sign that his denial only ran so deep.

Jiraiya's face softened. Relieved by the sight of that single tear.

"Even I want to believe that he's still out there. But hope only carries you so far before you have to rely on reason and experience."

Minato swallowed the lump in his throat, watching his life long mentor and teacher pick up the last remaining pieces of someone who may never come home.

_His_ someone.

Jiraiya held the abused mask and half book out to him, "I pray that your right and Im wrong. But it doesn't change the fact that your still the Hokage and you have other shinobi who need you as well."

Minato took the items reluctantly, his carefully constructed mask back in place preventing further attempts by his body to betray him.

_You don't understand Ji-ji._

_I'm the one who needs Kakashi, not the other way around._

* * *

It was that single realization that had him staring at the only window he ever refused to lock. The window a certain silver haired shinobi always used like a personal door.

It was the little things.

Like the window.

Or the book.

The minute way thin pink lips curved unconsciously when he didn't know Minato was watching him read.

His eyes flicked over to the sofa following his line of thought instinctively.

He could almost see the younger man stretched languidly over the sagging cushions, one hand raised above his head, a finger absentmindedly twirling a lock of hair as his eyes drifted over the pages.

Two weeks.

It was the time frame in which a retrieval team was allowed to find a shinobi who'd failed to return from a mission.

Depending on the evidence a team discovered by the end of those two weeks the shinobi would be declared killed in action or officially added to the Bingo book as rogue and hunted down immediately by the elite squad developed for those rare and regrettable occasions.

It was now going on three weeks and Minato had yet to sign the papers declaring one Hatake Kakashi KIA.

The Sandaime himself had abolished the MIA status in favor of shinobi who's names would not have been included on the monument stone otherwise.

He had also set the guidelines for declaring a missing nin KIA.

Because in the shinobi world missing for longer than two weeks meant they were dead.

It was a rare occasion when this rule was broken.

But Minato couldn't push past the fact that Kakashi, who had once abided by the rules as if there were no other way to exist, was now the late for everything, sarcastic, porn reading type of shinobi who preferred to call the rules apply-as-needed guidelines instead.

The type of shinobi who would walk through his door any moment and declare he had been held up by a young girl named Alice who was searching for a large white rabbit.

At that thought, blue eyes slid from the couch to the door and he held his breath for several heartbeats before finally letting them drop.

The very small shred of hope Jiraiya had mentioned snapped like a taught rope under pressure.

It uncoiled within him so fast he found himself reeling from the pain.

His breath stilled in his chest. If he let it out the sob would follow and then the hot tears. He would be forced to mourn his loss.

He refused.

Not yet.

Carefully, he inhaled until his lungs expanded to their limit and held it. The exhale was slow and shaky but it was enough to push everything back as far as he could until all he felt was exhausted and numb again.

Standing, he briefly patted his pockets and tried to think of what to do. Go home. Stay and work. Take work home. Eat. Train. Each idea was quickly shoved aside as a sickly feeling came over him.

Sleep.

Sleep sounded ok.

His eyes took in the sofa again.

After a quick clean up, locking the door, flicking off all the lights, removing his coat and vest, Minato dropped with more force than he'd intended onto the worn cushions.

He hadn't slept in his office in ages.

Not since Kyuubi.

He felt that same feeling exhaustion return. The kind that seeps into your bones and turns your mind to mush.

Without thinking he laid back just how he'd imagined Kakashi earlier. Sprawled out and carefree. He shifted a bit here and there trying to find that perfect spot and when he hit it just right his lip curled a bit.

Nestled in the permanent grooves and curves the silver haired shinobi's body had molded into the old piece of furniture over the years made him feel....warm.

Draping the arm above his head over his tired eyes, he tried not to think of all the things he would miss or the inevitable duties he would have to perform when he woke.

_Like signing that damn paper._

_Arranging the funeral._

_Adding another name to the black stone._

There was a finality to those thoughts threatening to unravel the carefully controlled emotions that had been gouging out a deep hole in his chest for the last three weeks.

Tucking his hands under his arms he rolled onto his side and buried his face into the back of the sofa.

Where a familiar lingering scent made his body tense and fold in on itself.

His breath stopped completely.

It made his head pound from the lack of oxygen and his throat tightened considerably. A large knot lodged there, strangling him He couldn't breath now even if he wanted to.

His lungs demanded he take a breath, allowing the knot to break free. He shook with effort to stop himself knowing what would happen if he continued.

But with every breath he took Kakashi was there. His scent. His voice. His warmth. As close as a ghost could get.

One sob dragged out another and then another until there was nothing left of himself but a shell in the dark.

* * *

He'd been dreaming about him again.

The same as before.

Each time it was a different location. The house, his office, the training grounds, the main gate, the hospital. It always started the same, Kakashi had come home. It always ended the same, the funeral.

As if the beginning and the end were disconnected. Two halves of his heart. One, the hope that somehow his beloved would make it home and the other, the pain of knowing the first would never come true.

He shifted the coat higher, closer to his face, to ward off the cool night air.

His eyes opened into slits. Unseeing.

His shoulder ached from the pressure on his bent arm, tucked like a pillow under his head.

He wanted nothing more than to go back to sleep and ignore the familiar weight building up in his chest.

At least when he was asleep he didn't have to face anything except the nightmare that at the very least brought him back his Kashi-kun.

Much more than reality could offer him right now he thought groggily.

So he dozed like that, suspended in the between. Not really awake but unable to fall back into the deep sleep he'd been blissfully trapped in moments before.

His mind seem to sort through and present random memories of his time with Kakashi.

The little things.

Like the feel of Kakashi's warm lips pressing at the corner of his mouth.

The way his breath puffed out over his cold cheek when he whispered his name.

Unconsciously, the blonde turned into that imagined puff of air, a soft whimper escaping his lips.

He wanted it to be real.

He wanted these simple little things that he'd taken advantage of and missed so much to come back to him.

Wanted them so badly he knew the fingers brushing the hair off his face was an hallucination.

"Shhh."

Warm lips pressed against his forehead.

"Kashi..."

The name slipped out on a breath so as not to scare away the ghost.

"Hn."

Minato frowned, his eyes rolling under their lids as he struggled back to the surface of his mind, "Kakashi."

A warm hand pressed against his cheek, his eyes flew open just as another kiss was pressed to the corner of his mouth.

Kakashi's favorite way of teasing him awake.

A weight settled on the edge of the sofa.

A larger weight lifted from the blonde's chest and he launched himself into the warm body.

"Your alive."

"Ahh..."

"Your real. I didn't imagine you."

"Real enough to want to know why you're here and not at home."

_Kami!_

_That voice._

"Say something. Anything."

Kakashi frowned.

"What are you doing here? You know how hard it was to get back here to begin with? But then I had to go home and find the house empty and drag my aching ass back out...."

"I'm sorry." a shaky voice whispered then inhaled sharply before letting out a low uninhibited howl which quickly became muffled by Kakashi's shoulder, "...so-s-rry."

Fingers dug into his back.

Painful.

Desperate.

The lean frame of his lover shook almost violently.

Kakashi's heart slammed against his chest and he understood, "No. I'm sorry." he said softly.

Closing his eyes he tipped his head into the blonde's neck and planted a firm kiss there, his good arm wrapping tighter around the man who was doing a great impression of a second skin.

Not once on the journey home did he ever consider giving up.

The days and nights he'd spent barely sleeping or eating.

Avoiding enemy shinobi by using the most difficult routes.

Diligently ignoring his broken arm, the cracked rib, the sprained knee.

_Your worth all of that and so much more._

"I would have been here sooner but I got lost looking for my book. You haven't seen it have you?"


End file.
